


These Borrowed Scars

by raelee514



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fallen Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-16
Updated: 2014-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-25 00:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1622291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raelee514/pseuds/raelee514
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s like a sudden thunderstorm Castiel thinks, it comes and it can’t be stopped. This is nature at work in a human body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Borrowed Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Think is set sometime in Season Five.

Two beds, bad wallpaper and an odd musty smell mingles with mold and a myriad of scents from countless humans. Castiel rubs nose, and leans harder against the wall behind him because he’s unsure of what to do now. He’s hot, he thinks, wonders if he should take off a few of the layers he wrapped in. Wonders why he just doesn’t. Sam is at the library, expects to be there for hours, looking through old records and something called microfiche. Castiel had offered to help him but Sam had shook his head and said he would fine on his own. Dean’s in the shower. 

Castiel’s eyes fall to the shower door, there is nothing to do but wait. So he stands, but has to lean against the wall, his feet hurt he thinks. But he doesn’t know what to do about it. He feels tired too, he thinks, wonders if he needs to sleep. Castiel swallows against the thought, all his thoughts, all these mundane human concerns. 

The shower door opens. Dean comes out a towel wrapped around his waist. “Shit it’s hot in here,” Dean says, shaking his head and walking over to the window, his hands landing on a white contraption underneath it. Fiddling with the dials and buttons. “Son of a bitch, A/C is dead.” 

Castiel agrees. “It is hot.”

Dean turns and Castiel watches Dean’s eyes, eyes that are always so sharp, seeing so much more than Dean ever lets on to the world. Eyes that fall down the line of Castiel’s body now. “Dude, if your hot take off some clothes.”

Castiel sighs. He knows he should yet he doesn’t want to. He wants to be -- unaffected by human needs -- he wants to simply be able to adjust his body temperature so he is always comfortable. He wants not to feel aching feet and sweat pooling on his neck and his stomach.

Dean shrugs when Castiel makes no move to remove his clothes. “Suit yourself, Cas.” He goes over to his bag and starts to rummage through it, taking out clothes and smelling them, making faces and tossing them into a pile. 

Castiel’s gaze falls to Dean’s shoulder. He sees his handprint, his real handprint -- former handprint now. It’s large, slightly raised on Dean’s skin, paler than the skin around it more pink and looks softer than rest of the skin. Castiel stares, he’d known he marked Dean, known but he’d never really seen it. He’d seen Dean without a shirt a few times before, as he and Sam went about their days before him, but he just never looked. Never had a reason before.

Now he thinks his reason maudlin, self-punishing. He doesn’t hold such power anymore, he could never raise someone from perdition again. He is his vessel now. Locked in a body, locked and limited now. He can fly, he still has wings, he is still stronger than men but he’s not really An Angel. Not anymore. He doesn’t know what he is and wonders now and again if he will keep his wings the longer he stays here, with Dean and Sam. Fighting his own kind. Fighting for humanity. 

He wonders why he won’t turn back when the losses he feels start to feel like too much but he knows he’s on the right side. He is in the right. So why is he hurting?

The handprint on Dean is glaring to him, it’s hurting his eyes, things are fuzzy and something is stinging him. His hands go up to his eyes and his fingers come away wet. He stares at his fingertips puzzled.

“Cas?” Dean’s voice is low, soft and wary. “Hey, Cas, what the hell, what is it?”

Castiel looks up, Dean has moved closer, he’s in front of him now, still without a shirt on, only in ragged jeans that hang low on his hips. The handprint still glaring to Castiel, and his eyes sting even more, he feels wetness on his cheeks. He closes his eyes but that doesn’t stop the stinging or the wetness. He shakes his head at Dean, “I don’t know what is happening.”

“You’re crying,” Dean says, his voice rough and his eyes darting everywhere like he’s afraid to look directly at Castiel. 

Castiel wipes at his eyes again, this time with his arm. “I don’t...I...” an odd sound escapes his throat, a gasp for air as the tears he’s producing get worse. It’s like a sudden thunderstorm Castiel thinks, it comes and it can’t be stopped. This is nature at work in a human body. 

“I’m hot, my feet hurt. I’m frustrated at my lack of -- I can’t --” his hand reaches and touches the handprint on Dean’s arm. “I can’t do this ever again.”

Dean looks at him then, but Castiel is looking at his handprint, marveling at it’s size, at it’s puckering, at the mark his power made on this man before him. Power he’s lost and misses but doesn’t regret. He is confused. 

“Cas,” Dean says his name, low and rough and determined. Castiel looks towards Dean, into those shrewd eyes and sees again why he turned his back on his own family, on his own kind, why he has no regrets. It makes him feel better, he doesn’t understand why because his confusion only feels worse. How do humans do this? 

“How do you do this?”

Dean is still looking right at him, Castiel knows Dean is searching for what to say, how to deal with this. How to fix it, even. Take care of him, because that is what Dean does even if he’s not good with actual communication. He’ll always try to help someone.

“Cry?” Dean asks, his voice revealing how out of his depth he feels. 

Castiel shakes his head. “Yes, I don’t know, feel more than one thing at once. Feel loss and frustration and anger and yet be glad you put yourself in the situation that causes it. How do you deal with so many emotions that conflict yet go together at once. It’s confusing.”

“You just do, I don’t know, Cas. Man, look, you’re sweating, you’re obviously hot. Take a shower, I’ll find some clothes you can borrow that won’t be so....well stick up your ass stuffy.”

Castiel nods. “A shower.”

“Yeah, man. Let the water be as cold as you can stand it, it might help.”

Castiel nods again. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

“Cas, look man -- I owe you,” Castiel watches Dean’s eyes drift to his shoulder, it’s then Castiel realizes he’s still got his hand against his own handprint, his new hand smaller yet fitted perfectly at the same time. He stares and finds he’s not ready to move his hand off of Dean’s skin. Dean’s warm, the soap from his shower has filled Castiel’s nose yet he smells that unmistakable mixture of leather and earth that is Dean’s unique scent. He saved this man and this man feels gratitude. Castiel feels shame, unworthy of Dean’s thankfullness because he’s confused, frustrated, and sad about things that were his own choice. 

“No, I am being... I made my own choices.”

“Yeah, Cas, you did and no one said it was easy to deal with that. Look man, I, we, Sammy and I we owe you. A lot. Not just the whole out of Hell thing -- and look man I don’t have plans on going back soon, so you won’t have to worry about not being able to pull me out.” Dean ended with a loud sigh. “Seriously, Cas, you need a shower, and you know what I’ll find you a toothbrush, get you in some less holy tax accountant clothes. You’ll feel a bit better.”

Castiel eyes drift back to Dean’s shoulder, to the pink raised skin, to the reminder of what he wasn’t. He stands there transfixed his eyes starting to sting again, idly wondering when they’d stopped, until Dean’s hand fixes around his wrist. Dean’s grip is hard, solid, real and it moves Castiel. Moves his hand off Dean’s shoulder, moves his eyes back to Dean’s face. Dean just nods towards the shower, pulls Castiel forward ahead of himself. Dean’s hand leaves his wrist, but his hands hit his back, a solid push into the bathroom. 

“Lets get you cooled off, cleaned up, you know the concept right, Cas?”

Castiel turns then from the dingy small motel shower to Dean, scowling. “I know what to do.”

“Then do it, man,” Dean says with a smile. “Go on.”

Castiel nods, turns away from Dean and goes into the small room. The door closes behind him. “I’ll find you something to wear,” Dean says, his voice muffled by the door.

Castiel takes off the trench coat, its weight off his shoulders already lessening the heat he’s been feeling around his neck. He feels lighter in a way he doesn’t quite understand but it feels amazing. Castiel pulls at the tie, drops it onto the trench coat at his feet. Pulls off the suit jacket and feels another sense of relief. Yes, he should remove layers when he feels too hot, he thinks. He knew this, why was he so afraid to try it? A sense of gratefulness hits him for Dean, he must remember to thank him when he is done. His sense of gratitude grows as he removes each layer of clothing and soon finds himself naked. He looks at the body, once his vessel’s but now his -- he looks for the first time. He sees on his abdomen the appendectomy scar from when Jimmy had it removed at seventeen. He sees the small scar on his knee, and the one on his mouth from the bike accident Jimmy was in as a child. Castiel stares at these borrowed scars, stories he knows but pain and trauma he can’t remember. If his ability to heal continues to wan, someday he thinks he’ll have his own -- like Dean, with the handprint and other scars that riddle his body. 

Castiel had renewed Dean’s body, had brought it back based solely on DNA, but only two years later and Dean had new scars, new marks brought on by his choices. Castiel runs his hands down his chest -- how will he mar this body, he thought? He finds himself curious not upset. He made this choice, he has this body now, and it’s time to get to know it and yes wonder how it will be scarred. After all he has chosen the life of a soldier. No, a hunter, now he is a hunter. 

With that thought, Castiel turns on the water in the shower, watches the spray shoot out. Freezing cold water splatters against his overheated skin. He jumps, he shivers and he stares in fascination at the goosebumps that formed on his pale peachy skin. After being so warm the shudder of cold had feels welcoming -- Dean had been right. He quickly turns and fiddles with the knobs of the shower until he finds the lukewarm temperature that cools him without making him feel too cold. 

Stepping under the spray, grabbing the soap that reminds him the shower-clean smell of Dean, Castiel shuts his eyes for a moment, reminds himself again to thank Dean for this and falls into the routine of a shower for the first time in his life. He’s still confused, still frustrated but feeling more at peace. After all, Castiel thinks, being human is trial and error. It is making it up as you go along. He thinks he can do it. He can.


End file.
